


It was all a Labccident

by BookSongs



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Autism, Autism Spectrum, Canon Autistic Character, Chronic Illness, Entrapta loves Science, F/M, Family Feels, Family Issues, Fluff, Hordak hates (almost) everything/one, Hordak still tends to lash out, Hordak's not the best at social interaction, Human AU, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lab Partners, Multi, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, anger management issues, i will however try to put warnings in for heavier chapters, neither is Entrapta, oh Hordak you emotional mess, sciency stuff, there might be some canon typical violence later on, there'll be some best friends squad but main focus is Entrapdak, this is still mostly in development so tags might still change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22974295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookSongs/pseuds/BookSongs
Summary: Hordak is a good scientist. He works efficiently, he works hard. Hitting a little research block won't change things. As long as he's left alone, everything will fall into place.Entrapta begs to differ
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 109





	1. Entrapta makes an entrance

It was a decent day at the lab, despite it being Monday. At least according to Hordak. He came in early at around 6 am, when none of his co-workers had arrived yet, the office kitchen was completely empty when he poured himself the first coffee of the day, albeit far from the last one. Sitting down in the rather uncomfortable black office chair Hordak went over the most recent notes in his laboratory journal flipping over one page after another. His last transfection hadn’t worked out after repeating the procedure several times, even after switching from a liposome-mediated transfection to a chemical induced phagocytose, he just couldn’t seem to make the experiment work. If he hadn’t been the man he was, he might have considered checking for errors and possible mistakes with one of the other scientists, someone more experienced at working with eukaryotic cells, but this was Dr. Hordak Etamin. It was a stupid move on his behalf, and he knew it, but he had his pride. Slowly sipping the too hot and too dark coffee he went over the nucleic acid sequence yet again. Half groaning, half mumbling to himself Hordak continued to berate himself for his continuing failure to finish the experiment. But hey, as long as he was left unbothered things were fine, weren’t they?!  
  
***

Dr. Entrapta Dryl was in a good mood today, yes completely joyous, definitely and undoubtedly. She totally did not feel uncomfortable at the scratchy – was it scratchy or was it maybe just the skin on her arms tingling all of a sudden again? Where was the difference anyways – feeling of the dark blue fabric covering the armrests of the almost certainly highly expensive swivel chair she currently found herself in. And she certainly did not want to swing her feet back and forth at rapid speed, despising the feel of them hanging loosely in the air with her legs being too short to touch the ground. She also definitely wasn’t just yearning to jump off the chair and open those windows, no the air in the gigantic bureau was just fine. Fiddling with her hair or fingers? – No, what kind of person would she be to…

“Dr. Dryl? Dr. Dryl, is something wrong? You seemed to be paying no attention to any of my words.”, Entrapta looked up at the pink and purple haired middle-aged women sitting across the desk; her new boss Dr. Angella Brightmoon to be precise. She was a nice woman, well at least what one would consider nice Entrapta thought to herself. Dr. Brightmoon’s features were always so calm and friendly, her hair was impeccably groomed and fell over her back in soft waves. Entrapta liked the uniformity of the curls and waves that ran through Dr. Brightmoon’s hair, she liked how Dr. Brightmoon almost seemed to have a completely symmetrical face and body. It was somehow calming. Orderly. Not that she had ever been one to avoid messes but sometimes, especially when things became overwhelming again, she needed either or, chaos or order but not what she perceived as a middle ground. Personally of course she preferred her controlled chaos, but in this case a state of order would suffice, as long as there was an air of control this was just fine.

Oh no, she hadn’t been paying attention again. She could see it in Dr. Brightmoon’s slightly impatient eyes and the light crease on her forehead. Dr. Brightmoon seemed to have taken note of Entrapta’s stare and sighed almost inaudibly, before she met Entrapta’s eyes.

“Dr. Dryl, I know you’re new and you just received your doctorate a couple of months ago, but we specifically offered you this research position to boost your position in the scientific community. We are invested in achieving the best outcome for you and for the research group. I’ve been made aware of, well, some of your mannerisms and with my utmost respect to you and your work, but it is vital, that you tone some of that down.”

Entrapta averted Dr. Brightmoon’s gaze. Not only did she feel almost singed by those words, but she knew just as well that she needed this job. She could not mess this up, not again. Although she refused to admit it, fear seemed to be rising in her chest. The armrest fabric seemed to burn off her skin layer by layer. The urge to fidget with her hands seemed to become overwhelming.

“How about I show you your workspace and the labs for now and we will go over the paperwork later?”

Entrapta almost missed these words. Almost. But hearing them was like she had been thrown a life belt.

“YES, YES!!! I mean… I would love to. Thank you Dr. Brightmoon.”

“You can call me Angella.”

“Thank you, Angella.”

Entrapta stood within the blink of an eye, ready to leave the unsettling office, at least for now. The work group leader slowly got up as well and gave Dr. Dryl a tired smile. She knew the young woman had performed extremely well at her previous workplace. She knew, that Dr. Dryl although young seemed to have an incredibly promising future in front of her. She knew all those things, but she couldn’t help but worry, that the new doctor would cause more troubles than she might be worth.

***

Angella slowly opened the door to a small to medium sized lab, not empty exactly but there only seemed to be to workstations while all left over space was taken up by some smaller centrifuges, vortexes, two PCR machines and some other machines Entrapta hadn’t worked with before. There was only one small window at the end of the room with the two free workstations adorning it on the left and on the right. The floor was covered in grey chemical resilient tiles and the wall was painted white, although here and there one could see some accidental splashes of presumably media or chemical solutions that left small stains behind. There were two big fridges to the right of the room, one at 4° C and the other at -20° C, both making a quiet humming noise. Next to the sink dirty glass ware waited for the chemical dish washer to finish its run. All in all it seemed like a pretty standard lab, but to Entrapta this was simply perfect.

“And this is our last lab in the south wing. And right here next to ice machine is going to be your main workstation with your pipettes, tubes etcetera.”

“Ooooh, I never had this big a workstation just for me before! Well I mean, I never _really_ had an own workstation till now. Ah and do I get to stuff and fill the cupboards, shelfs and racks too?”

“Well some, but you will find some are stock storages for falcon tubes, serological pipettes and similar single-use materials. But don’t worry I marked the places, where you can put buffers and solutions and such, with your name. The fridge for temperature sensitive solutions is…”

Entrapta was only half-listening, already wandering through the lab and checking every place and everything she could get her hands on – well except the higher shelves, she couldn’t reach. When Angella, who had been explaining some other rules and guidelines regarding the lab in detail, noticed this she pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing to herself. What had she gotten herself into?

Entrapta came to a halt at the second workstation in the room

“Who is Hordak?”

“That’s Dr. Etamin to you.”, a gruff and deep voice to her left answered. If Entrapta didn’t know any better she would consider the voice to almost sound angered, but it had always been hard for her to truly put an emotion to a certain tone or sound of a voice. However, her assumption proved to be indeed correct when she met the obviously upset face of a very tall and imposing man in a lab coat, who apparently had just entered the lab through the connecting door to the neighbouring lab and was now stalking over to her. Entrapta could only stare at the man in wonder, while he came closer, not that there was much distance to cross. His shoulders were drawn up in an almost comical way, that Entrapta supposed could possibly be perceived as intimidating by others, not her of course. Yet she couldn’t help but look the man right in his eyes. They were of such an odd colour, almost seeming red in the dim light within the lab. And before Entrapta could move or tear her eyes away from the man, he was leaning over her. Tall, imposing, overshadowing her completely.

“Get your hands off my workstation child.”, the man almost seemed to growl.

“Hey, you’re blocking my light.”, Entrapta said squinting at the other face. Yes, she was sure, his eyes looked as if they were glowing. The man’s eyelid twitched at her response.

But before anything could happen Angella stepped forwards.

“Hordak, please say hello to Dr. Entrapta Dryl. She’ll be your new lab partner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew I don't know what came over me for writing this, but I guess this is happening now?! I really hope you all can enjoy it :)  
> I'm not a native speaker (and I also have no beta reader help), so please don't be too harsh, however pointing out flaws and errors will be appreciated. 
> 
> Etamin is one of the stars of the dragon constellation. Not anything particular in mind here, but I thought it’d be nice to give Hordak a universe-related name and the dragon constellation honestly just seemed fitting although I also considered Gemini for obvious reasons.  
> I hope that Entrapta's (and Hordak's ofc) portrayal will be somewhat in line with her canon personality and not offend anyone reading this story.
> 
> I study and work in the biochemistry field so all given information relies heavily on my experiences, of course I do know there is no such thing as uniformity across all labs in structure, hierarchy and so many other things. 
> 
> Comments, thoughts and kudos are always appreciated.  
> Will most likely update irregularly


	2. Hordak's tired

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thanks for reading even more of this mess. This chapter will lay a basis for some to come. I have a rough outline of everything now, but tags might still change in the future. Some future chapters might get a little dark and I'll try to place appropriate warnings where I can, always let me know if something is bothering you though.  
> If there's any grave errors ahead, please let me know. I still do not own She-Ra.

Ten minutes had passed since Hordak and Angella entered the bureau to ‘talk’ about this new lab partner arrangement. Entrapta sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, trying to catch any of the spoken words inside but couldn’t. Hordak’s reaction hadn’t exactly angered her but it had certainly irritated her. How was he this opposed to having a lab partner, who he hadn’t even met yet. Furthermore Hordak, or Dr. Etamin, should know just as well as Entrapta that ‘lab partner’ in their particular context really just meant working in the same lab, not on the same project, at least yet. Why were some people just so unreasonable, acting upon emotion rather than logic? It seemed silly to Entrapta, relying on data was just making so much more sense to her. She made a mental note to herself to start a new data base on all her new coworkers as soon as she’d be home again, starting with Hordak. Entrapta found some peace and a lot of joy in collecting this kind of ‘social’ data, always striving to improve the current algorithm she was applying to the attained information to not only gather but also utilize the data. The idea of human predictability based on math was just to fascinating for her to skip out on.

However, she couldn’t deny that Hordak had intrigued her beyond his actions.

After his initial reaction, he had withdrawn quickly from Entrapta’s personal space, giving first Angella and then her a bewildered look. Entrapta guessed, based on previously attained data on emotional responses, that he was in shock, but one could never know for sure. What Entrapta did know for sure though was, that he was quite an extraordinary looking man. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his reddish ones. While not mirroring her own more magenta eyes, she had never met anyone outside of her family with such an odd eye color. Fascinating. His complexion was extremely pale almost in complete opposite to her sun-kissed tan. His white lab coat almost seemed darker than his skin tone, but not quite, missing the slight pinkish hue. Entrapta wondered if Hordak had ever seen the literal light of the day, _ever_. His hair had been dyed dark blue and neatly styled. He neither seemed to be overly muscular nor too skinny but somewhere in between, thin, nonetheless. He was also tall, really really tall. Entrapta being barely at elbow height. But none of that really caught Entrapta’s attention quite as Hordak’s full name.

“You are Dr. Etamin? Oh wow, that’s amaaazing!!”, Entrapta shook her hands positively shaking in excitement, “I absolutely loved your research paper on hypoxemia in gram negative bacteria!”

Entrapta’s eyes were opened wide and filled with anticipation, they were virtually sparkling. Nothing was quite as fun as discussing science, and with Hordak or Dr. Etamin maybe she might finally have found an equal, who might be able to follow her ramblings. However, Hordak hadn’t paid her any attention. Lowering his menacing gaze, he turned to Angella.

“Dr. Brightmoon, what does this _girl_ do here?”

That had hurt her a little to be honest. She might be small and short, but she was a scientist in her own right. She sighed and began twirling a hair strand between her fingers. It wasn’t the first time she felt belittled. It had happened at the old lab too. Somehow the way she was made people think they had to keep an eye on her. Not to deny that Entrapta had caused some minor troubles in the past, but it was never out of stupidity. Her coworkers however would not agree. But now was no time to linger on negative thoughts. She needed this job. Well, mostly because all other labs she had applied to although at first enthusiastic had rejected her after meeting her personally. She knew, that she wasn’t exactly what some considered ‘normal’. And apparently this was perceived as possible future trouble by others. Yet no one ever explained their concerns or made suggestions for her to work on, they just waved her off with some more or less obvious lies. But that’s fine, she wouldn’t want to be hired by someone lying to her face anyway and at least those lies were rather easy to identify unlike some others she’d been told throughout her life. Lies, another thing Entrapta just couldn’t wrap her head around. What a waste of time and words if none of the content conveyed any valuable information. Well and of course spreading misinformation is always just a terrible idea. Her mother had tried to explain to her why people lied and what motivations they might have but Entrapta never quite understood, why her mom would justify something so irrational and irritating as lies.

Entrapta pressed her ear against the uncomfortably cold door but to no avail. She still couldn’t understand a word of what was said inside. She knit her brow’s together and after another second of thought, balled her hands into fists and got up from the floor again. No, she would make this work. She would get _and_ keep this job. She would befriend her coworkers and then they wouldn’t make fun of her and they’d always be honest and upfront about things, if she asked them to be. She could do this. And Hordak just needed some time to really get to know her and she would try her best to become his friend, no matter what. She would make him value her research just as much as she already valued some of his.

Entrapta gave the locked office door another slightly wary look and then decided to explore some more the labs she had been shown earlier. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on that shiny mass spectrometer.

***

“I do not accept this tone, Dr. Etamin! I am your superior and if I order you to work with Dr. Dryl, then you will do so.”, Angella had her head in her hands, elbows resting on the long wooden birch desk in her own office. She had been discussing the issue for what felt like hours already now, yet Dr. Hordak Etamin, one of her most valued scientists, still stubbornly refused her ‘not-request’.

“She is essentially a child. I cannot waste my time like this, someone as clueless as her just asking one question after another, I’m not some childcare service. Can’t you tell that she lacks the necessary experience?! Just put her in another lab, there still must be a free workstation next to someone left.”, Hordak’s face is contorted by disgust and annoyance. Not a good, but very common look on him. He’s not yelling at her – he wouldn’t dare – but his voice is much louder than required to be understood.

“ **HORDAK**! Not only is Dr. Dryl only five years younger than you, she is also already well-known in the community and has shown great potential. I want to hire her and the workstation opposite to yours is still free, so stop questioning my decision. She is highly invested in her research and I believe that, if you were willing to give her the benefit of doubt, you could see this for yourself.”, Angella stood up abruptly nearly knocking over her chair and although seeming graceful and fragile to some people’s eyes, in this moment - and to Hordak - she was definitely anything but. Standing tall and not even bothering to mask her disappointment and impatience with Hordak, she made it clear their discussion was over. Hordak couldn’t help but flinch a little at her words.

“You _will_ work with Dr. Dryl. You do not have to like her, you do not have to talk to her in your breaks, but you will work with her. That means alongside her, as well as in the same lab. I assigned Entrapta a couple of possible projects already, but if she does decide to directly work with you, you will let her. You are a scientist and no matter the number of your nature and what not publications this is your workplace and I am your superior. You’ll act professionally, because I tell you to. Are we clear on that?”

Hordak stayed defiantly silent, refusing to give in just yet but to some degree aware that he had already lost the argument. His gaze lowered, no longer able to meet Angella’s without potentially snapping at her. The latter, he was sure, would not be appreciated.

“Hordak, I’ve been keeping the space next to you empty for years and only because you insisted you better work alone. And while I’m willing to admit that you produced a fair number of results over the years, I refuse to just leave half of the lab deserted much longer. I tried to provide you with some leeway out of respect and because I value you as a scientist, however, you always knew some things were meant to be temporary from the start.”, Angella absently examined her hands, before facing Hordak again, “I just want to give her the same opportunities that I gave you years ago. So please just work with me here, it would make things easier for everyone.”, a pleading tone stole its way into Angella’s words.

“Fine.”, Hordak scoffed, far from content. His whole stance betrayed his obvious opposition to everything just said. Yet, he knew she was right and arguing would not benefit him well.

“Great, then go ahead and make yourself acquainted with Dr. Dryl, I’m sure she’d be thrilled, if you were to apologize to her.”, Angella said with a sly smile gracing her lips.

 _That devil_ , Hordak thought to himself. As he forced a begrudging smile on his face and left the office.

Angella sighed and plopped down into her chair again. She had anticipated that Hordak would be less than thrilled, however his reaction had been even more poorly than she’d hoped. _Well, nothing a bit of pressure from up top couldn’t fix_ , Angella thought as she stretched her arms, only now realizing how tense she had been.

She just hoped, that things would work out. Pairing off Hordak and Entrapta had been very purposefully. She had heard from other people, after all the science community in and around Etheria was comparatively small, that Entrapta was prone to some rather unusual behavioral patterns and also had a rather had time at making friends, seemingly living completely isolated just outside the city. Hordak on the other hand seemed to refuse any sort of emotional attachment. Although he improved upon his temper slowly and steadily, he made sure all his previous collaborations with other scientists were on a long-distance base. At least he finally joined some of the group meetings outside of work, apparently, he was getting fond of Bow, who besides being just the nicest person in this world, also produced some rather promising and solid results that even Hordak couldn’t help but acknowledge. But Angella really hoped that pairing of Entrapta with Hordak would ease her into the group rather than overwhelm her with someone as talkative and sociable as Bow or her daughter Glimmer.

Angella sighed and let her eyes wander back to the screen with work to be done already accusingly glaring back at her. Collecting the paperwork for Dr. Entrapta Dryl, which had been pushed aside earlier, she figured it was best to find the young scientist before Hordak ran into her.

***

Hordak stomped down the hallway, his mood worsening with every step closer to the now shared lab. Maybe he should just go for another coffee, return to his office space and read some papers, pretending carrDr. Dryl wasn’t even there. She’d surely be in the lab or mingling with some other lab group members anyways. It wouldn’t solve the problem, but it certainly couldn’t get any worse. At least he might be able to catch a break for a little while. With long and determined strides Hordak reached the kitchen, opening the door so violently he might as well have tried to rip it off its hinges. His eyes still glued to the greyish floor tiles. He felt some faces turn and stare at him in bewilderment. He knew, most of his coworkers found him strange and tried to distance themselves from him; easy to anger, impatient, quiet, distanced, overreactive… There were so many things he’d been called, why bother now with trying to change things. And not like he cared anyways. Holding his head high but avoiding anyone’s eyes, he crossed the room quickly to go for the coffee machine. Dr. Hope’s master student Adora chatted with Dr. Brightmoon’s daughter, and soon to get her degree, Glimmer. Frosta, who had joined the group a couple of months ago as a Bachelor student and was some sort of childhood prodigy, intently listened to both girls. The Salineas couple, well Dr. Mermista Salineas and Dr. Seahawk Salineas, seemed to playfully argue about something completely redundant and Dr. Plumeria also occasionally chimed in, when she wasn’t preoccupied with her fruit salat.

Hordak grabbed a new cup from the shelf, pressed a few buttons and began drilling holes into the coffee machine with his eyes, desperately trying to avoid anyone else. Agonizing seconds passed, while the coffee beans were being automatically grinded too loudly with the water heating up too slowly to Hordak’s like, before his cup was finally filled to the brim. Carefully balancing it Hordak quietly tried to leave the room.

“Mornin’ Hordak, Glimmer said we have a new post-doc joining our group today. Have you met her already? Glimmer told me, you might.” All of a sudden Bow stood in front of Hordak, a smile plastered onto his face.

“Good morning Bow, but I really don’t feel like small-talk right now.”, Hordak said trying his best to steady his voice, rather than simply snarling at the young man.

“Sorry, I was just curious, didn’t mean to rile you up. Oh, but while you are here; Glimmer and I have been planning a little group picnic for the weekend at the end of the month – and yes, the weather should be better by then -, you are also invited and if you see the new one, please tell them they can also come. And maybe you could help me a little later I need to get the small nitrogen tank refilled but it’s just a bit too heavy to carry it alone, well you probably know that better than I do anyways.” Bow just kept on smiling. Geez, as much as Hordak began respecting the boy, who’d just a couple of months ago began his doctorate, he could at times just hate those big bright smiles and this overly joyous tone.

“Yeah sure, just ask me later again.”, Hordak grumbled back.

“Great, I’ll tell Glimmer, that you’ll join us too! See you around”

“Hey, I did not… never mind.”

Great, now he had to waste his time on a group date. Again.

Striding through the hallway and back to his office, he thought things had hit rock bottom, however, as he opened the office’s door, he was proven wrong.

Sitting there across his own desk was a peculiar long haired scientist, already decorating the desk with a couple of sticky notes and small plushy virus and bacteria figurines – he had seen those before, Seahawk had tried to get Hordak to look though a whole online catalogue alongside him to pick one for Mermista, or as Seahawk had added, while smiling impishly, a possible Salineas junior; Hordak had felt the instinctive urge to throw up hearing those words and silently left the room. Back on topic he tried assessing, if this was some incredible joke on him. What was Angella thinking?! His eyes narrowed further as a couple of papers slipped from an already impressively high and unorderly stack from her desk unto his. Yet, Entrapta didn’t even seem to notice.

Hordak loudly put down his coffee mug and cleared his throat, hoping to catch her attention.

“Oh, Hordak, I was already wondering where you had been, I couldn’t find you in the lab and I wanted to ask you some very important questions about…”, Entrapta began cheerily.

“First of all, it is Dr. Etamin to you, and secondly, I’d appreciate, if you wouldn’t spread your _junk_ unto my desk as well.”, Hordak interrupted, his eyes narrowed and his tone carrying a slight threat. The latter was however lost on Entrapta.

“Would you mind not interrupting me? It’s rude. Also I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up later, didn’t expect ‘moving in’ to be this messy. But it’s fine. The genius thrives in chaos! AHA, found what I’ve been looking for!”, and with that she pulled out a single sheet of paper from yet another stack; it tottering alarmingly for a second.

Hordak flinched, had she listened to him at all? It was beyond his understanding why Angella would hire someone like her and furthermore, place her not only in the same lab but also in the same office space as him. As if having Seahawk next to him and Dr. Hope across Seahawk hadn’t been enough already. If it were up to him, he’d rather taken up a space in one of the three small storage rooms, next to serological pipettes and spare bottles of disinfectant and soap than one next to any person. Trying to pay Entrapta no attention he sat down taking quick sips of coffee, even burning his tongue a little, not like it mattered to him though. As long as she would just leave him alone –

“I’ve been thinking, I know you probably have many other projects right now, but I always wanted to try some of your experiments on some anaerobic bacteria but instead of oxygen, they’d be deprived of one gas at a time – I must admit I don’t know what kind of gas mixture this lab here uses for them – and then maybe even reducing pressure close to vacuum to see if that triggers any similar response in them or if they are far more resilient to these kind of changes than aerobic bacteria. Oh, I’ll have to check first what kind of pressure we can create in the anaerobic chamber. I know, this will probably not yield any results – they are anaerobic for a reason - but I’d really love to try anyways. You know, for science!”

Hordak, narrowed his eyes even further, trying to just block her out. But she didn’t seem to notice anyways, rambling on.

“I always think it’s rather one experiment too much than not, so many fascinating discoveries happened by sheer luck. You know, nature has so much to offer and things we thought never existed, yet they have proven themselves to be possible after all. Oh, don’t you just love this whole trial and error thing? - So much to learn from both failure and success, isn’t it great?!”

Entrapta still on her ramble, wildly gesticulated, painting fantastical pictures into the air, Hordak looked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope, the characters are not to OOC... Bow got his very very short cameo, but don't worry, he'll be back eventually, as well as some others mentioned in the chapter.  
> Next chapter: Cheer up, Hordak, maybe you'll actually like working with Entrapta, if you give her a chance.


	3. Entrapta is a genius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks,  
> thanks for your patience. I hope you're all staying healthy and safely at home (if possible). Try not to get overwhelmed with it all and if you do talk to someone you trust and care about. Most importantly take care!  
> I hope the fic can serve as a little distraction from it all though.

“Good morning lab partner!” Entrapta exclaimed loudly as she entered their shared office, balancing two cups of steaming hot liquid in her hands whilst pretty much kicking the door open with her left foot. Hordak groaned.

“So, I’ve been thinking…” She excitedly stated as she placed the bland, black coffee right before his nose, switching her cup to her right hand and smiling mischievously at him. Her cup was, as usual, filled with hot chocolate with additional whipped cream on top and rainbow sprinkles. She claimed the traces of theobromine and theophylline were enough to get her through the day. Also, fizzy soft drinks with caffeine were far less bitter and thus more enjoyable, or so she told him. Not that he had asked. He rarely asked any questions and yet she continued bombarding him with answers.

“No thank you, I’m not in the mood.” Hordak quickly declined, trying, and at times failing, desperately to be polite. He might not like the arrangement, but he wouldn’t dare to anger Angella again, if it was somehow avoidable.

“Pleeease Hordak, I even brought you coffee.”

“I’m not a personified form of entertainment for you, Dr. Dryl.” He had given up on reminding her to call him by his family name and title just two days after her arrival. However, that didn’t mean he couldn’t call Entrapta by hers.

“You can really call me Entrapta, you know? No reason to be so stiff around each other.” Entrapta responded slightly irritated and perhaps a bit impatient with Hordak’s stubbornness.

“Sure, whatever.” Hordak responded absentmindedly while scrolling over the sequence data that came in this morning. After a yet to be explained frameshift mutation in another of his cloning experiments he just hoped this one worked fine.

“Great, so I’ve been thinking. Well, I mean, we all are always thinking about _something_ , but in this specific context I spend some time going through your recent experiments-“

“Did you read my lab journal without permission? Did you just go through my stuff? Dr. Dryl?!”

“-what I was trying to say is that I have some proposals to make and I’d really like to work with you, you know I’m good!”

“If I’d say no, would you stop bothering me?”

“Well temporarly. Perhaps.” Entrapta replied smiling and completely unperturbed by Hordak’s annoyed tone.

“Okay fine. But you’ll leave me be as soon as whatever you’re planning is done with.”

“Give me a couple of minutes I gotta find some of my notes. I took them while going over your lab journal but I completely forgot to put them in any sort of order.”  
“Who am I telling this? You’ve seen my desk.” Entrapta excitedly babbled, although slightly flustered “And thanks lab partner!”

Hordak looked up to Entrapta. He didn’t think he’d ever seen someone reacting with such vibrant energy and genuine joy to anything he said.

_This Dr. Dryl was certainly different._

Hordak sighed, quietly accepting his fate. The sooner she’d leave him alone again the better.

***

Hordak had almost forgotten about his earlier talk with Entrapta, well or perhaps he had just tried to push it as far away as he could, until of course the younger scientist came stumbling into the lab. One of her hands still gloved and holding unto three small chemical bottles containing different amino acid mixtures, the other carrying an ice box filled with several falcons and test tubes. She apparently had opened the door more with her left foot than with either of her hands. Her lab coat was already stained different colors after just a couple of weeks. Some of those stains were such strange colors that Hordak couldn’t even think of a possible origin. With a silent sigh Hordak turned ever so slightly keeping his hands within the clean bench he was currently working on to halfheartedly face Entrapta.

“Hey lab partner! So, I already brought some of the reagents along, I also prepared some fresh antibiotics and salt solutions. Maybe we could do the clone selection with an antibiotics concentration of 50 mg/ml, I know you always did 30 mg/ml up to now but I want so see if we can increase the selective pressure because the share in positive clones did decrease in your experiments over time and I’m not sure yet whether that’s due to the bacterial strain or if the selective pressure is not sufficient enough for the bacteria to not reject the plasmids after a while. I also double checked within the papers and I think the strain should still be growing with the increased antibiotics presence. Might just grow slower. So how about we start with preparing the transformation for later this week? Maybe Thursday? I’d already prepare the agar petri dishes though. Is LB okay or would you rather try a NAG medium? Oh and I also thought –“

“Dr. Dryl can you please slow down? I still need to finish up and I’d rather-“ Hordak had picked up a new petri dish and was currently carefully spreading his overnight cultures. He was almost done just three more to go.

“What are you doing? Is that strain producing pyocyanine? The color looks AMAZING! I didn’t even know you were also working with _Pseudomonas_ strains! Oh, and now that we are lab partners you can really just call me Entrapta.”

“ ** _Dr. Dryl_**.” Hordak’s tone was barely passing as neutral. Collecting himself for a second Hordak put down the petri dishturned to Entrapta. “Please. Can you let me finish first?!”

“Ah sorry, didn’t mean to distract you, oh hey you missed that one.” Entrapta replied quickly pointing at one of the glass culturing tubes.

“I don’t think I-“ Hordak carefully counted the petri dishes. Entrapta was right he had forgotten to spread one culture. “Uhm. Thanks.” Hordak quietly added.

“Sure, no problem lab partner!” Entrapta flashed him another smile and began cleaning out enough space on her workstation to put her current cargo down. Recklessly pushing colorful racks aside and ignoring old notes written directly on the surface of her workstation. The carelessness with which she proceeded had Hordak shivering at its sight. Working with her would be very different to how he usually did things and he wasn’t sure at all that he would be prepared for it.

***

“Fascinating!”

Entrapta squealed in delight. She was currently holding up a colorful petri dish with one hand and scrolling through the sequence data on her laptop with the other. Hordak had told her several times that she really shouldn’t carry it in the lab itself but trying to stop her had been doomed from the start. This was obviously only her “lab laptop” – meant to be used within the lab – anyways. Hordak had only groaned at that.

Although she would have to do conduct one or two more further experiments to determine if the changes made had caused the experiment’s success this time around or not, however, seeing all nucleotides perfectly aligned with her prediction was already quite rewarding. Especially considering, despite her having been very optimistic at the beginning, it had taken her a lot more time and several tries for the transformation and the gene insertion to go as planned. She had had to work overtime for almost three weeks now, now though, she felt like it had been worth it.

Hordak had been incredibly pessimistic about everything and had, after trying unsuccessfully to convince her to just drop the whole experiment right away, only ever offered some negative commentary when present. Admittedly he seemed to be spending even more time than usual scooped up in their shared office and typing away at some new research paper or alike.  
To her surprise though he did help her occasionally, if she asked, although reluctantly. But she also noticed him doing a couple of other things to take some of the workload of her shoulders. Not that he let her see him help, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d seen the freshly prepared media the morning after she had just run out. One morning a cup of warm cocoa had already awaited Entrapta’s arrival at her desk and another evening a cooled bottle of soda just magically appeared after she complained about the heat outside.  
When she had asked him, he denied it. Stubborn pride, she guessed. It seemed entirely illogical to her, but it really wasn’t her business and she had more than once been reminded by people around her that some of her inquiring questions were simply rude and uncalled for. She didn’t understand the latter either, however, she understood that fitting in meant accepting this “border” she supposedly had crossed with former co-workers.

Entrapta hummed to herself and made some notes on the visual appearance of the bacterial colonies on the petri dish in comparison to their native strain. Nothing seemed to stand out, although they seemed to grow slower. This was to be expected.  
She put the petri dish with the genetically modified strain back into the incubator and the native strain dish in the fridge.  
Taking another look at her sequence alignment she decided it was time to tell Hordak the good news!

***

Hordak had avoided Entrapta all week. He wasn’t quite comfortable with her just working on his project. He had provided her with what she needed, nevertheless he had desperately hoped she would stop changing parameters and trying to improve on _his_ experiments any day now. She had _not_ done that. Instead she had been incredibly persistent and more than once he had noted the growing dark bags under her eyes. But she was none of his concern and a grown up anyways. If she wanted to pursue this dead-end project, she should do just that.  
Not like he cared. Well maybe a little. It was his project after all.

Granted, he had begun looking into some of her research and had been thoroughly impressed with it. Not like she’d ever now, but he had even taken one or maybe two looks at her lab journal. Albeit the pure chaos on her desk had been reflected within the lab journal he could still tell that she was a lot more focused and hard working than her appearance might have suggested.  
Maybe Hordak had spent a lot more time this week studying her research intensely, rather than making much progress in his own. Just maybe.

Her insertion into his work-life had been anything but welcome, yet here he was. Hordak had never been one to have many work relationships besides apathetic “Hello’s” and “Goodbye’s”. Recently he had spent some time with Bow, a fairly clever boy and though Hordak would never admit to it, it was kind of nice to not be left alone to brood all day long about life’s miseries. Maybe Entrapta being his lab partner could turn out to be an, uhm, acceptable thing. Maybe he was just getting a little too used to the occasional hot and extra black coffee on his desk every other morning. It was odd and he didn’t want to think of it longer than what he was comfortable with.

He closed a few tabs and took a quick look at his online calendar. He needed to get home soon. He also still had to pick up some take-away food on his way home, it was Friday after all and his little brother would be expecting and accepting nothing less.

Hordak’s train of thought was jerked to a halt when Entrapta entered the office.

“Hey Hordak! Great, I was kinda worried, you might be home already. I have GREAT news!”

“Why aren’t you home on a Friday evening yourself, Dr. Dryl?” Hordak barely looked up from the bright computer screen, trying to focus on the tasks he had set himself. He had really fallen behind recently, and he didn’t feel like another endless rambling session from Entrapta would do any good in this regard.

“Oh well, you know. Not really anyone expecting me back home and I sleep in on Saturdays anyways. Sometimes I just sleep all Saturday, helps with the weekly sleep deprivation from Monday till Friday. So, don’t worry. Oh, and these results are way more important right now!”

“You know you should really adapt at least some kind of sleeping schedule.”

“Sure whatever, this really ain’t the time. I have important things to talk about with you!”

If I can’t stop you anyway, you might as well just proceed. But I need to leave soon so I’d appreciate if you could make this quick.” Hordak sighed with a quick side glance at the clock on the opposite wall.

“Hey, no need to be all grumpy. This is good news. The best actually!”

And with that Entrapta shoved aside a stack of paper on Hordak’s desk, ignoring the sudden killer look in his eyes, and dragged her swiveling chair right next to his.

“You won’t believe this, but it worked! The gene cassette was inserted perfectly this time! No unexpected stop codons, no frameshifts. It’s all looking pretty much perfect. I mean as perfect as artificial genetic constructs can be.” Entrapta babbled, all while having a smile plastered on her face.

Hordak perked up at that.

“It was successful?” He questionably raised one of his thin eyebrows at her.

“Yes! And you just gotta see it! Gosh, I’m so glad. I was almost afraid I might have to quit or delay some work on that, you know, just to get some stuff I promised to Angella finally done. This makes me so happy!” Entrapta, seemingly out of nowhere, placed her laptop right in front of Hordak with the sequence alignment still open. “Just take a look!”

“Isn’t that your ‘lab laptop’?”

“Psshhh, this is not the time, Hordak.”

Hordak resigned to reminding Entrapta of the lab guidelines later, knowing it would be pointless right now, and scanned through the data.

“This… this looks, uhm, sound… I must acknowledge you did… not bad at all.” Hordak stammered a little perplexed and suddenly very self-conscious.

“Aww, thank you Hordak! But it’s really based on your work. And honestly, I’m just super glad it worked out at all. So, what do you want to do next? I’d love to-“ An almost manic glint had made its way into Entrapta’s eyes.

“Dr. Dryl. Uhm, Entrapta, today is really not the day. I need to get home soon and though I’d love to explore some ideas for further experimentation on these clones but maybe we can just do that next week.”

“What can be so important it can’t wait?” Entrapta teased.

“Uhm, it’s a set date and I need to be home in time for it.” That wasn’t exactly stretching the truth. Hordak did promise his little brother a movie night and his favorite dinner. Thus, Hordak had to be back before Imp’s bedtime. But there was no need for Entrapta to know of any of that, and all other things concerning his private life.

“Oh, that’s unfortunate but sure.” Entrapta’s face seemed to somber a little until suddenly the broadest smile grazed her face. “You said ‘we’. No backsies!” She made, what Hordak would have almost described as a small giggling sound and gave him a quick wink, he’d almost missed it. But he didn’t and Entrapta took note of the small blush creeping onto his face as well as him calling her by her first name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so sorry. I kind of ran into a writer's block and sometimes the whole situation in the world rn overwhelms me but now that things - at least here where I live - are slowly going back to normal (fingers crossed this will all go well), I'm starting to feel a little better.
> 
> I'll try my best though to post the next chapter asap, which might be within this or next week.  
> Comments, Kudos and alike are highly appreciated! (And please tell me about any mistakes you might stumble across.)
> 
> Also some explainations:  
> LB - liquid broth and NAG - standard nutrient agar + glycerol are some standard lab media, they are complex media so there's the obvious disadvantage of not knowing the entire composition but they are often useful when minimum media are impairing the bacterial growth (usually shortterm)  
> frameshift mutation - what it says; the reading frame is changed and therefore codons might code for different amino acids, also the first stop codon is mutated; this can have plentiful of effects and if you're curious, go read up on it :)  
> Because most things in biochem/genetics/alike lacking any color or yellow, I figured it'd be nice to have something colorful for Hordak and Entrapta to work on. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is producing the molecule pyocyanin which depending on its oxidation state can be either blue, yellow, red or transparent. The blue is really gorgeous and although there's plentyful pigment molecules out there, I just really like the color of this one. Hence pyocyanin.  
> The antibiotics mentioned are some that are typically used in biochem/genetics experiments.


	4. Hordak is not good with emotions

When Entrapta entered the office Hordak was already angrily smashing away at his computer keys. His forehead was all scrunched up, with his eyebrows drawn together in something between rage and desperation. Entrapta guessed he was deeply in thought. Probably non-positive thought. His eyes barely qualified as slits.  
Just on time with the door clunking shut Hordak audibly slammed his fist on the table, almost grazing the keyboard. The sound startled Entrapta for a second, she hated loud noises like these. They always made her skin itchy and her fingers slightly shaky. Fortunately, she managed to shift her focus from the noise back to Hordak himself. However, he didn’t even blink, nor did he look up. She was almost entirely certain he hadn’t noticed her entering at all.

Taking of her coat – the weather had changed drastically a few days ago and the temperature dropped from something akin to summer paradise to north pole – Entrapta noted a few other things around their shared space. The – hopefully - still first cup of coffee on Hordak’s desk was almost empty. A cup of formerly hot chocolate waited on Entrapta’s desk for her to empty. Hordak’s usually neat and tidy desk was cluttered with papers, pins, paper clips, two unorderly folders stuffed to the brim. There was also a circular brown stain, which Entrapta combined might indicate an earlier coffee spillage. Hordak’s coat had been discarded on the floor without care.

She did not like this. This was on the one hand not like Hordak at all, and on the other it made her incredibly uncomfortable. Although she had troubles keeping order, Hordak’s order had something consistent. It was something she could rely on. The chaos surrounding him now threw her off. She had always enjoyed a certain consistency in life, it made changes somewhat easier to handle.  
In her old lab Entrapta had only used one single brand for all lab supplies and another for all chemicals and alike. The one time a coworker of hers had reordered riboflavin from another supplier she had almost had a breakdown. That had also been the day her former coworkers had begun talking behind her back. Of course, she’d known. Usually this didn’t bother her but some of the words they used sent her shivering with feelings she did not understand. Feelings she tried her best to push away, uneasy with the thought to explore them.  
This could not repeat itself, Entrapta thought, carefully picking up Hordak’s coat and putting it on the rack.

“Good morning Hordak!” Turning away from his mess over to hers, she tried to greet him without letting him take notice of her confusion.

Hordak audibly groaned in response.

“Hey, no reason to be this grumpy. It’s waaayy too early for that.” Entrapta leaned unto Hordak’s desk giving Hordak a small smile.

It went unappreciated.

Hordak turned towards Entrapta snarling. “Leave. Me. Alone.” Every single word stressed with an almost threatening tone.

Unflinching and unwavering Entrapta kept on smiling. “You literally got me a cup of cocoa, preeetty sure you planned on me being here. Besides it’s been a super boring weekend and I really just want to talk about where we left off last week. You know, science ain’t waiting for no one.” She added mischievously.

“I said: LEAVE ME ALONE!” Hordak raised his voice and Entrapta jumped back a little at the intensity and the anger in his words.

Taking a deep breath, she turned back to him. Smile still in place. “No need to get in a tizzy! And anyways I still have all those results to share with you. There’s some real good news on the experiment front.”

“I don’t care.” Hordak spat, his voice laced with angry defiance, his eyes burning holes into the desktop screen.

Entrapta wasn’t good with feelings, not hers, much less those of others, but in this moment, she was entirely convinced that her lab partner was in a pretty bad mood. He was acting terribly irrational.

“Fine.” Entrapta pouted and turned away from Hordak, he remained unmoving.

Well a grumpy Hordak might slow progress, but he surely wouldn’t prevent it all together. As she sat down behind her desk, she decided it’d be best to just let him cool off for now. She figured that he’d - at some point - be in a talking mood again eventually. With a last look over to him, she picked up her cup of cocoa, taking a tentative sip and sat down behind her desk. Turning her computer on, she jammed her headphone cable into the AUX port and turned the first song she could find up to full volume. Not that she needed the sound turned to full max, she only ever used her almost perfectly soundproofed headphones, they helped her cancel out almost all sounds around her, which at times had proven to be beneficiary, but at other times it was comforting to drown out her hearing sense with the controlled noise of music altogether. She actually had several spare pairs of headphones; two of them modified by having cut of their connective cables, one at work and one at home, just in case she might need some quiet. Real quiet. Well that and they simply felt nice on her ears. Her thoughts wandered back to the accusingly long list of data files on her screen. Last Friday she had barely grazed any of them and besides her messy notes, nothing had really gotten done. Brushing a loose strand of her long lilac hair back, she readied herself. Another sip of, what was formerly, hot chocolate and a last glance back at Hordak and she’d be taking on this task. Admittedly, she had hoped, she could analyze most of the data alongside Hordak, but she was a pragmatist and if he wasn’t going to help her now, she’d just start without him. He’d come around eventually. She hoped.

Hordak made an odd but distinctly tense growling sound staring at whatever he was looking at. One of his eyes was twitching a little.

***

Almost two hours later Entrapta got up. Her eyes had begun to grow tired and her shoulders felt incredibly tense. She had tried playing around with brightness and contrast settings for her screen quite a bit during her first week here, but somehow it was just off. She’d have to ask Angella if she could get a replacement. Maybe she could suggest ordering one just like the one she had at home. Thankfully there was plenty of lab work to do as well, she might as well get started on that. Stretching her arms, tensing and easing her hand time and time again, she didn’t even notice Hordak’s eyes on her. Intertwining her fingers, she began stretching her arms, continuing to ease some of the stress on her shoulders. It wasn’t so much, that she wasn’t used to working in front of a screen for long periods of time, but well, this wasn’t _her_ chair nor _her_ screen, and though trivial to some, this did make a difference to her. Satisfied with her quick stretch, she proceeded to give her eyes another rub, still adjusting to the different lightning. At times she almost forgot how sensitive they could be to certain stimuli. The instant she looked around once more Hordak averted his eyes. Had he been staring at her? She took out a brush from the depths of her lilac alien-themed backpack, released her hair from the pigtails just to put it back into pigtails after incorporating the loose strands. Some came lose again instantly. Well, she guessed it couldn’t be helped. Unceremoniously she dropped the brush back into the depths of her backpack. Taking a last look at the paper she had opened on her computer, double-checking the procedure the researchers had followed, she reached for the door handle, when unexpectedly Hordak audibly cleared his throat.

He had spent the last two hours drinking way too much coffee – time and time again storming off to get another refill -, grumbling and sighing a lot and occasionally banging his fist on the table.

“Dr. Dr-, Entrapta. There were some … minor inconveniences, that troubled me earlier. My harsh tone was unwarranted, I apologize. I have taken care of… things.“ In the blink of an eye an exasperated, perhaps slightly scared expression flickered on his face, before returning to his usual stoicism and neutrality façade, she was so well acquainted with. She had almost missed it, but indeed she didn’t. “If it would please you, maybe we can look over the data now.” Hordak now almost seemed embarrassed, averting his eyes from her as if his life depended upon it. But she couldn’t be too sure, her ‘people skills’ were rather rusty.

“Oh, uhm, well I wanted to get some lab work done for the day. But I guess, I could bring my laptop, you could get a look at my notes and the data, and we could talk while I’m prepping some of the microbial cultures.”

“I’d rather-“

“Actually. Now that I think of it, that sounds great, this kind of work usually gets super boring, especially with so many strains and cultures to prep. It’d be neat to put some extra use to that time. So, meet me in the lab in 5 minutes?! Still have to collect a couple of chemicals from the southern lab wing.”

And with that Entrapta overenthusiastically left the office. The door fell shut as Hordak quietly sighed.

***

“What I was thinking, is that we could try to implement the procedure mentioned in the paper and tweak it a little, maybe try some different extraction methods or possibly try to induce some additional stress on the bacteria’s metabolism by adding some heavy metals to the media or reducing the carbon-source. Oh, and if you have the time, maybe we could also try the genetic approach and put some promotors here and there.”

With swift and quick motions Entrapta pipetted the PCR mixture into the color-coded tubes. There was of course no reason to use color-coded tubes for the reaction mixture, but Entrapta had insisted on only using them for literally everything she did. According to her they we’re ‘cute’. Hordak slightly shook his head at this thought and began scrolling through the sequence data yet again. After quickly composing himself he turned towards Entrapta and replied.

“I’d propose beginning with the varying experimental conditions and maybe we can consider the promotor insertion depending on the results. I’ve found it’s been rather difficult to insert some of the more efficiently working promotors.”

“Sure, that sounds fine. Anyways, I’d also like to...” Entrapta began rambling, exploring a few more outlandish or complicated ideas. Hordak examined her carefully, now having more or less abandoned the laptop accusingly glaring at him from the bench.

He had never met anyone quite like her before and he found he rather enjoyed her rambles. Although it nearly pained him to admit it, she seemed talented. She was relentless, determined, stubborn, and well, intelligent, clever, smart. Throughout the last weeks he had, albeit at first reluctantly, listened to countless of her rambles, and in spite of his best attempts to ignore her, he couldn’t deny that her input was often … helpful. He had hated the thought of working alongside the lilac haired woman at first but now he found himself oddly reveling in the time they were spending together. Not that he would ever admit, but there was something strangely comforting in preparing her a cup of hot chocolate alongside his first coffee of the day, or at times even having a steaming mug of the dark brown liquid already waiting for him at his desk, whenever Entrapta happened to come in earlier than usual. Her notes were often far messier than his own but somehow, he now often couldn’t help himself but smile at her ridiculous and small doodles plastered all over.

She was what some would have called an odd ball, but he found her to be much more understandable and agreeable than most other members of their research group.

“Hey Hordak, were you listening?” Entrapta had apparently picked up on his silence and had crossed the distance between them, just stopping short of being pressed up against his chest, her still gloved hands resting by her sides. With her head slightly tilted, she had a curious and interrogating look grazing her features. Realizing only now that he had been caught red-handed staring at her, he felt the heat in his cheeks increasing rapidly.

“I, uhm, must have lost focus for a second.” Why was she so close all of a sudden? He’d definitely need to talk to her about personal space. “Excuse me, I think I left my lab journal in the office, I’ll just quickly grab it.” He stammered, while awkwardly moving along the work bench until he was close enough to reach for the door handle.

“But Hordak, I didn’t even-“ And before Entrapta could finish Hordak had rushed out of the lab, leaving his confused lab-partner behind.

Right next to her laptop laid a blue lab-journal with the black initials HE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so terribly sorry. I know I promised an earlier update but then Season 5 anxiety gripped me and after I finally got around watching it, I had some real issues focussing... But well here we are once again. I hope this chapter does not disappoint considering the prolonged wait.
> 
> So Hordak is warming up to Entrapta, isn't that nice?! But yeah, he's having some anger management issues... But you could probably guess from the tags already that the fic would be more than just fluff.
> 
> Also as a further note: I try to portray Entrapta's autism as sensible and accurately as possible, however, if anyone has something to add or would like to comment on things I should add or change, it is always appreciated. I am not autistic myself, however I am to some degree somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum and pull some of my inspirations from that. Other than that I try to incorporate elements from her character on the show and some of the core issues I've read up on online and in the spectacular and oddly touching novel 'Odd Girl Out' by Laura James.
> 
> PCR is a polymerase chain reaction, you might have heard of this in relation to Corona already, but it is essentially a way of amplifying (/multiplying) a short DNA/RNA sequence through the means of a cycled reaction. The idea is you start out with one strand of DNA so after a first reaction you'd have two strands of the amplified fragment, after the next you'd have four fragments and so on and so forth. The fragment is defined through the chosen primers binding the DNA/RNA.
> 
> Sometimes putting some stress on bacteria can enhance their metabolic activities of their secondary metabolism. The secondary metabolism is essentially everything that is not necessary to survive, however often highly beneficial e.g. toxins or antibiotics.
> 
> Poiting out grammar mistakes or alike is appreciated. My writing still has a lot of room to improve and I'll try my best, even as non-native speaker.  
> Comments and kudos are always welcomed and if anyone has further questions or if anyone of you wants a more in depth explaination of the sciency-stuff in the fic, I'll try my best to answer to that call. Feedback as to if there is too little or too much lab stuff in the fic will also be savored.
> 
> There also might soon be a Post-S5 She-Ra fic on my AO3, which would - you guessed it - be very Hordak and Entrapta centric.


	5. Complications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR KIND WORDS AND KUDOS!!! Seeing all those wonderful comments has really made my day!
> 
> So yeah. This one is a little heavier. Also not quite as happy. But don't worry, there'll be some more talking and hurt/comfort in the next upcoming ones, well until everything goes back to angst again that is ;D (I'm terrible, making the two suffer like this but I can't stop.)  
> Sorry for the short chapter, I promise some upcoming ones will be much longer than 2k! It's just been a couple of veeery stressful weeks at the lab recently with an anaerobic chamber failing and some other issues as well as additional "homework" on weekends, but it should all be better now!
> 
> Trigger warnings: Implied past self-harm, implied violence, slight violence, mentions of illness

A deep ache shot through his wrist, his hand cramping involuntarily. The sample he’d been preparing dropped to the floor, and the small vial splintered upon reaching the tiles, its liquid contents splattered between tiny glass shards. His eyes went wide and a low growl escaped him. This was the last thing he needed happening now. Carefully he brought his left hand up to steady the still shaking right one, suspended uselessly mid-air, and now empty.  
Deep breaths, he reminded himself. He’d just have to get this mess cleaned up and come up with an explanation before Entrapta could return from her lunch. Fortunately, she usually took up to 2 hours, because, as she had explained it to him once, there were only three restaurants and take-away places, where they served the tiny food, she was craving. He hadn’t asked of course, but she had further delved into why exactly she couldn’t eat normal sized food, or at least avoided it as best as possible, and somehow, he hadn’t been able to stop or ignore her. Instead he had listened patiently to her seemingly endless ramble, while preparing his PCR samples. If he was being fully honest with himself, he’d probably listen to anything she might want to tell him about. There was just something enjoyable about her ceaseless but endearing rambling rambles, which admittedly have proven themselves to be surprisingly insightful.  
If Hordak wasn’t still flexing and unflexing his hand - an action that did bring along more pain than it probably should - and trying to regain control over it, he might have smiled at the thought of her.  
Grimacing and with his eyebrows scrunched together he took in the mess on the floor, luckily there didn’t seem to be any new stains to the floor unit of his workbench, but nevertheless, the sample, which had cost him almost an entire week of work alone, was lost.  
Entrapta and he had begun isolating and purifying a compound she had stumbled upon in one of her liquid chromatography mass spectrometer chromatograms. They’ve been testing optimal culturing and purification conditions for weeks, and finally with a somewhat-acceptably-working system in place, he had purified 2 liters of smaller 250 ml cultures, pooling all extracts and concentrating them into 250 microliters of sample. Entrapta had been incredibly excited as they weighed the sample and determined that it should be enough for recording a single NMR spectrum and maybe even one MS-MS fragmentation. This sample was now spread on the floor.  
He sighed deeply and repressed the urge to slam his tingling, but no longer unresponsive, right fist onto the workbench. Not only had he once before had to explain to Dr. Brightmoon how the heck he had managed to fracture several of his carpal bones – hamate, pisiform and triquetrum to be precise – at work in a biochemistry/genetics lab, but he had also been unable to do most of the regular lab work for almost two months. No, he’d remain dignified for now. His anger would have to wait until he’d leave work. He might be able to wreck his own room at home, but wrecking the lab would definitely get him fired, and above anything, this he couldn’t afford.  
Trying his best to suppress a sudden outburst, Hordak stepped around the ‘crime scene’ and grabbed the sweeping broom alongside its pan from under the sink. His knees aching as he lowered himself to reach the items.  
Taking unsteady and way too rapid breaths, he got back to the mess he’d caused and kneeled down to clean any traces of his … his mistake.

To his greatest displeasure, however, the lab door swung open in that exact moment and Entrapta came bouncing in. She had tied her hair into two long pigtails swinging back and forth with her every step. Hordak gave her a quick look but averted his eyes again almost immediately before she could meet his. As long as she’d leave him alone –

“Hey Hordak! Oh, I have to tell you something _AMAZING_!”

Hordak ground his teeth together hard.

“Why are you on the floor?”

Hordak snarled audibly and tried his best to ignore her gaze.

“Did you drop something? I can help you – “

“I do _not_ need your help.” Hordak hissed through his teeth.

“Hey, no reason to be angry or ashamed, I drop stuff at home all the time, that’s why I switched to plastic cups and plates. Don’t break when I knock ‘em over on accident.” Entrapta replied smiling patiently. “Here, let me help -“ She began as she lowered herself next to him, reaching for the dustpan.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Entrapta retreated her hand at his voice, slightly irritated and concerned, she let her gaze wander to meet his.

Hordak’s eyes almost glowed with fury. His lips were drawn into a teethy snarl. Entrapta was sure she’d never seen her lab partner this enraged before, although he did tend to swear a lot, when even the smallest thing went wrong; which in biochemistry and genetics was happening far more often than expected. This seemed different though.

“Hordak, I just wanna help you, it’s really no problem.” Cautiously she laid a hand upon his.

“I SAID LEAVE!” With one swift motion Hordak brushed her hand aside in an almost violent motion and got up to leave. “You will _not_ help me with anything. I do not and never will need your help and you dare not imply that ever again.”

“This really isn’t –“

“GET OUT!” He yelled, swiveling around to face her, his face scrunched up in anger.

Never before had Entrapta seen her dearest lab partner like this before. Never had he treated her like that. Never had he glared at her with such unbridled rage.  
It didn’t scare her, yet she could feel a part of her aching at his words, could feel her eyes widen and tears welling up at Hordak’s inexplicable behavior. Her she had been thinking, that the at times quite mysterious and closed-off man was finally warming to her… Well, she had never been ‘good at people’ had she?!  
In one rigid motion the female scientist could feel herself get up from the floor and quickly leaving the lab, her movements entirely detached from her confusing feelings.  
Later she wouldn’t be sure anymore when exactly the first tears began streaming down her face, but in that moment she couldn’t hold them in any longer.

Hordak on the other hand couldn’t contain his anger any longer and before he knew any better, he crushed the plastic handle of the sweeping broom, which he had still been holding. Some of the sharp edges of the now split handle dug into his hand painfully. He chose to ignore it, tightening his hold on it further, before he threw the broom to the floor violently. It splintered further due to the impact, now far beyond usable.  
An uncontrollable, twitching sensation began to spread itself from his fingertips up to his shoulders, just before he could feel his muscles cramping. Barely able to suppress a groan at the twinge in his arms, Hordak stepped over the broken plastic and glass pieces carelessly. He’d get another sweeping broom from next door, clean up his mess and never ever speak or think of it again.  
It took much more determination and strength than he cared to admit to steady himself enough to open the door and retrieve the broom from the neighboring lab, return and sweep the floor carefully, as his entire body seemed unable to stop shaking.

With a long sigh he dumped everything in the contaminated glass ware waste and retrieving his lab journal from the bench, began planning the repetition of the experiment. If he’d be able to get it done before coming Wednesday, he might be able to brush off Entrapta’s questions about the results for long enough without telling her that he broke the sample vial. Well, that was in case she hadn’t figured it out already.

***

Entrapta hadn’t been crying for long, five minutes tops. She wasn’t one to cry. Though she was still somewhat upset about Hordak’s yelling, she couldn’t let her feelings take a hold of her. She’d just give Hordak some time and space and try again later. Maybe it had all been a misunderstanding or just a misdirected outburst. Yes, the more she thought of it, the more she was convinced, that Hordak’s anger was more likely linked to himself rather than her. Even though she had no idea as to why he’d be angry at himself, he had certainly seemed to have been in a sour mood, when she entered the lab, something else must have been the trigger. Maybe it had to do with the broken glass vial on the floor. If that used to be a not yet measured or otherwise analyzed sample, she could definitely see, why he might get a little agitated, though he’d obviously been overreacting. Not even a spilt sample was worth getting this upset about. But just maybe she could help him with getting a new sample done as soon as possible.  
Getting up from her curled-up position on her chair to aimlessly walk around the desks in their shared office, circling them almost like a shark would his prey. Moving about the room sometimes helped her think. This was one of those times.  
He had been working even more than usual these last two weeks and she had taken note of his sunken in and tired eyes, despite the clear attempt to mask it with mascara and eyeshadow – which admittedly, she had really liked on him; not that she didn’t like his looks without, but the extra drama added something to his look, she could more than just appreciate. But she was getting off-track again. Occasionally Hordak had also appeared to be more frantic and skittish than usually, she recalled.  
Now, Entrapta wasn’t sure what had caused any of this, but as his friend it surely was her task to find out, wasn’t it?! And it surely would be fine to just skim some of the files spread over his desk, that did not appear to be lab work related. Or was that overstepping boundaries? – Nah, it was for his benefit, the purple-haired scientist decided as she came to a halt behind Hordak’s desk and reached for a yellow-brownish manila folder.

***

Hordak had impatiently waited until Entrapta finally left the lab, always careful to avoid her in their shared office and lab space, until he returned to his computer long enough to go over the e-mail, he had received earlier. It was from his physician. The price of his medication was going to increase drastically, and he would have to come by for a check-up asap. Something about the tone told Hordak all he needed to know; he’d most likely not be able to afford his medication anymore without taking on tons of debt. Which in turn would be passed down to his smaller brother, shouldn’t he be able to pay the money back. And apparently his doctor knew just as well as he himself did, that the scientist would probably have to opt out of the treatment and pray to heavens that painkillers would somehow get him through the rest of his remaining work-life until retirement.   
Leaning forward to draw the keyboard close, his left sleeve slipped, exposing white and blue-ish scarred tissue. A panicked breath escaped him as he drew the sleeve back up quickly, ever afraid someone might have seen the small parallel lines across his wrist and arm.  
No, his little brother deserved to live a life free from crushing fear, and for that to be possible, he’d need to pull through all this. He’d just have to make it till retirement or at least until Imp would be able to get a job and stable income on his own. He could do that. Probably.

As Hordak pushed aside a couple of files and folders, he’d been accumulating on his desk, he found a purple sticky note attached to one of them. He was certain, he’d told Entrapta not to leave any notes on his desk and rather send him a mail, if she was afraid one of them might forget about whatever it was, she had been pondering. Though Entrapta tried to mail him some of her notes, more often than not, he still found sticky notes, often decorated with ridiculous doodles, atop of his.  
Sighing he removed the note from the folder and looked it over. This one was different from her usual ones, he noted, her scribbled letters looking cleaner and lacking any sort of small drawing of a robot or a strange gadget. A shiver ran down his spine as he perused it, dropping it, as if it had burned his fingers upon touch.  
It read ‘Research Prime Etamin’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I originally planned for this to be much longer, but than I just couldn't withstand the dramatic tension at the end of this one. Sorry. Really hope this wasn't too OOC, but I tried my best.  
> And don't be too harsh on our spacebat, he's really stressed out and misdirecting his anger at well everything and -one crossing his path. Poor Entrapta though.  
> The next chapter will hopefully up soon. Hordak and Entrapta will talk and both learn more about each other. And you also might meet Imp within the next two to three chapters and possibly 'someone' else...
> 
> Remember kids opening up to other people and being vulnerable can take a lot of time and effort, don't try to rush it, if that might harm anyone involved. It's okay to take your time with things. 
> 
> As always comments and kudos are highly appreciated as well as corrections!


End file.
